This excerpt from the Amritanubhava is an exploration of limited and absolute knowledge. Through metaphoric imagery he is trying to convey the differences between fluctuating awareness, awareness of fluctuation, and the settled awareness that perceives the unchanging reality.

Jnanadev is describing how we objectify reality, how we place it 'out there' and perceive it as separate from ourselves, so we can then see how that reality reflects something of our own nature back to us.

By looking in a mirror, one perceives his own identity;But that identity was already there.

A reflection in the mirror may suggest your own face, but it is not your face. If that mirror is removed or if you look away, you no longer see your face. Does that mean you've ceased to exist? Of course not. You're still right here. We don't disappear or die when that external object is no longer perceived.

So too with Reality. The more deeply we look, the more still our awareness, the more we begin to perceive in all phenomena a constant collapse that continuously resolves itself back into the undifferentiated reality of which it is a reflection.

The cresting wave is but its fall;The flash of a bolt of lightningIs but its fading.

Ultimately, we recognize that what we are truly looking at is always some shimmering aspect of our own Self. We are not observing objects or events 'out there,' we are not watching the "waxing and waning" of the moon. Whichever phase of the moon may appear to be in, we finally see that we are already standing in the flooding light of its "intrinsic fullness." Even when the form that suggests fullness is removed from our perception, that inherent fullness is not actually gone.

Most of us expend immense effort to find something we don't already have: God, wealth, romance... None of those quests truly end by acquiring something new, a new lover, a bigger paycheck, a divine visitation. All of those things are 'things,' objects. They are reflections that only suggest what we seek, not the true goal itself.

The ultimate RealityIs neither an object to ItselfNor is It an object to anyone else.

In our constant reflex to conceptualize and objectify the Divine, we keep failing because the Eternal cannot be contained by something limited. A concept, a definition, a thought is a limited unit of meaning; God can never be truly understood in that way.

The ultimate Reality exists in Itself,And is beyond the conceptionsOf existence or non-existence.

It is not the reflection we seek, not the obtainable 'object.' When we stop seeking an external 'thing,' the mind finally settles enough to perceive what truly and eternally IS. Jnanadev expresses it this way:

When a jar is placed on the ground,We have the ground with a jar;When the jar is taken away,We have the ground without a jar;

But when neither of these conditions exists,The ground exists in its unqualified state.It is in this same wayThat the ultimate Reality exists.

We are so fixated on the jar, the object, that we see ground with jar or ground with no jar -- and never quite see the ground. We are so used to the constant presence of the ground that we take it for granted and only notice that which changes.

A good exercise for the day: Notice the ground, not what moves upon it.